He’s a lot more chill than he was as a puppy, but the drool will be with us until the end of time.
“Do you like him?” Laney asks.
“Yes.” No hesitation there.
I do. I like him.
He’s funny and he’s sweet and he pays his taxes and he hasn’t tried to double-cross any of my friends. He’s been infinitely patient with Bash, which is a serious checkmark in thehe’s a good mancolumn.
“But?” Sabrina prompts.
And here are the problems. “But he says he’s quitting the public life, and one, I don’t know if that will make him happy, and two, just because he quits the public life doesn’t mean the press quits him. And three—I don’t know if he’s doing this for me, or if he’s doing this for Bash and I’m just part of the package. Like, would he do this foranywoman he accidentally knocked up, or does helikeme?”
Laney wrinkles her nose while she rubs her belly. “Valid concerns.”
“He likes you, Emma,” Sabrina says.
“But if he liked me, and I initiated a kiss, and he’s kept his hands completely to himself for the week since then,what does that mean?”
“Have you gotten anything out of his family?” Sabrina asks.
I shake my head. “I’ve seen them, but they basically treat me like I’m an old friend instead of the woman who’s been hiding his secret baby for the past two years.”
“Bash wasnota secret baby and you didn’t hide him. You tried to tell Jonas. He failed to get the memo.” Her eyes bulge, and then she smiles while she rubs her own belly. “Oh,hello, little one. Rather opinionated about that pork green chili for breakfast, aren’t you?”
Now that’s worth smiling over. “Are they kicking? Can I feel?”
Sabrina takes my hand and puts it on her belly, where I get a little flutter against my palm.
And then I squeal.
“Here, me too.” Laney grabs my other hand, and all three of us giggle and squeal while the babies kick us. “But mine’s just Theo’s child. They don’t really care what I eat for breakfast.”
We did this when I was pregnant with Bash too. All three of us feeling him kick.
With me keeping the secret about who my baby’s daddy was.
“I miss this,” I whisper.
My friends share a look.
Yes, the look ofshe could have it again if she lets Jonas back into her life.
I’ve seen him nearly every day. He declared the hot tub dead a week ago, asked very politely if he could replace it for me so long as his name appeared nowhere on the paperwork, and also if he could add a fence with a lock that Bash and the chickens can’t open.
On Monday, he patched the screens in a few windows around my house, including one in Bash’s room, that I hadn’t realized were the source of the increased bugs in the house.
Tuesday, while I was at work and Bash was at daycare, he tackled a deep clean of my kitchen, which I’d been meaning to get to but hadn’t yet.
Wednesday, he took Bash and me for a picnic dinner behind Hayes and Begonia’s house.
After sandwiches and carrot sticks and watermelon, we had fireless s’mores that he warmed up with a solar oven he made out of cardboard and aluminum foil.
YouTube can teach you the coolest stuff, he’d said, smiling like he was a kid again himself.
Thursday, we didn’t see him at all. He flew back to New York for a charity dinner to put the rumors about his public absence at bay.
And while he was gone, there was a crew at my house who believed that they’d been sent by Theo to install my new hot tub and fence.
